Conductor and pianist William Kelley, a graduate of The Juilliard School, has performed for audiences across the United States and Europe in a range of repertoire from Baroque to jazz to opera and concert world premieres.

In the 2020/21 season, Maestro Kelley assumed the position of Kapellmeister for Theater Bremen, where repertoire included productions of Purcell’s King Arthur with director Schorsch Kamerun and electronic musician PC Nakt and a Family Concert together with the Bremer Philharmoniker and the Landesjungendorchesters Bremen. In 2022 he conducts performances of The Cunning Little Vixen, Jenufa, Die Zauberflöte, and Pagliacci.

He recently gave the world premiere of Iain Bell’s monodrama for tenor and piano, Comfort Starving, together with Petr Nekoranec, which will debut in a staged production at the Bach Festival in Świdnica, Poland, directed by Krystian Lada.

Previously Kapellmeister at Luzerner Theater in Luzern, Switzerland,  he made his European conducting debut in 2017 with the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte.

 During the 2019/2020 season, he conducted Abraham’s Märchen im Grand Hotel, Carmen.maquia (a version for ballet), a world premiere by Manuel Renggli, Dschungel, and Piazzolla’s tango operetta, María de Buenos Aires.

Maestro Kelley’s 2018 debuts included a world premiere with the 21st Century Orchestra at the Lucerne Festival, Im Amt für Todesangelegenheiten, a concert with tenor Petr Nekoranec and the Czech Radio Symphony, and a return to the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester for Mozart’s Don Giovanni. Previous performance highlights include several recitals with Czech tenor Petr Nekoranec, Schubert’s Winterreise with baritone Christopher Herbert for Trinity Wall Street’s Twelfth Night Festival, a residency with the New York Festival of Song (NYFOS) at the Caramoor Festival, and a production of Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges at The Juilliard School.

In 2011, he made his Lincoln Center debut in recital with baritone Theo Hoffman which included the New York premiere of Jonathan Dove’s Three Tennyson Songs.

William has previously worked as a pianist and coach for Juilliard Opera, Music Academy of the West, Berlin Opera Academy, UNCG/Greensboro Opera, and the opera studio at the Robert Schumann Hochschule in Düsseldorf, Germany.